Navigating the world of scholarly communication; the impact of OA publishing on the secondary publisher: Navigating the world of scholarly communication; the impact of OA publishing on the secondary publisher Andrea Powell Director of Publishing, CAB International OAI4, October 2005


The role of secondary databases: The role of secondary databases “ to facilitate the identification and retrieval of publications” Chemical Abstracts CAB Abstracts BIOSIS Previews CSA Medline/PubMed INSPEC PsycInfo ISI Web of Knowledge FSTA CINAHL


How is this done?: How is this done? Comprehensive index of all relevant material in a given subject area Consistent indexing using controlled vocabulary and/or classification schemes Standardisation of formats and terminology Coverage of all document types Easily accessible via many different platforms and vendors Enough information to link to the full-text, preferably online


Some CABI statistics: Some CABI statistics Two main databases - CAB Abstracts and Global Health - covering applied life sciences and human health Continuous coverage of the published literature since early 1900’s Database archive dates back to 1910 and contains nearly 7.5 million references, fully digitized and indexed using CAB Thesaurus 225,000 new references added each year, up from 160,000 in 1996, reflecting growth in output


More facts & figures: More facts & figures Over 7000 serials received and included each year, from all over the world and in over 50 languages (mainly in printed format) Plus books, reports, conferences, some grey literature… Subject and content management specialists employed to acquire, process, select, abstract, index and package information for sale through multiple distribution channels, in print and electronic form


Use of A&I databases: Use of A&I databases Despite many predictions, it’s not going away! Los Alamos researchers use A&I databases 60% of the time to link to full-text ALPSP surveys of academic authors consistently rank inclusion of journals in A&I databases as “extremely important” when choosing where to publish their research Why would Elsevier invest millions in a dead-end product?


What do our users say?: What do our users say? “The easiest and most common way of locating useful articles is to use a database” - Flinders University Library “There are bibliographic databases for most major subject areas” - University of New South Wales “In some subject areas printed abstracts, indexes and bibliographies provide the best specialist sources of references.” - University of Reading


Slide11: “The viability of a vast network as an information resource must depend upon the imposition of quality filters similar to those of the print-on-paper world” Lancaster, F.W. “Does indexing and abstracting have a future?” Anales de Documentacion, No. 6 pp 137-144, 2003


Slide12: “Although it might be hoped that [Google] Scholar could become the one-stop, all-encompassing interface integrating all sources for clinicians, the variety of needs and the specialized nature of the literature means that Scholar, even with needed improvements, will remain only one of a battery of information retrieval tools clinicians use.” - Canadian Medical Association Journal, June 2005


Impact of Technology on A&Is: Impact of Technology on A&Is Move towards use of online versions of original documents (datafeeds or use of publisher websites) Digital workflows to reduce costs and speed up processing Linking to full-text via DOI or URL; OpenURL Use of Internet as medium of choice for research and communication


Impact of OA publishing: Impact of OA publishing No impact on selection policy; if content meets the quality criteria, it will be included Opportunity to link our users to freely available online content is appealing Inclusion of OA journals in our database is simply “business as usual” Self-archived content presents a more complicated scenario


Some logistical concerns : Some logistical concerns How do we find out about new OA sources? How permanent is it? How do we keep track of new content? Which version should we reference (pre-print, post-print, publisher version, author version…?) Can we be sure copyright is being observed?


Some sample problems: Some sample problems Internet Journal of Veterinary Medicine has an ISSN of XXXX XXXX Many OA journal do not use DOIs Many journals have an erratic publication schedule, so are hard to monitor effectively Not always clear if online or print version is “definitive”


Why should OA publishers work with secondary services?: Why should OA publishers work with secondary services? Will OAI technology be able to filter content and make sense of it? Is OAI metadata applied consistently and comprehensively? Should OA content be absorbed into the scholarly communication process and made easily accessible for researchers? Have researchers stopped using bibliographic databases to locate and retrieve information?


Slide18: “.. The future belongs not to those who merely navigate us through cyberspace, nor to those who populate it with data. Rather it belongs to those who help us make sense of all the data that is available to us.” John Regazzi, Miles Conrad Lecture, NFAIS Annual Conference, Feb 23, 2004